Kittens
by Christine Morgan
Summary: Unwelcome guests crash Maggie's baby shower. Considerable violence.


Kittens   
by Christine Morgan   
http://www.sabledrake.com   
christine@sabledrake.com 

* * *

  
Author's Note: the characters of Gargoyles are the property of Disney and   
are used here without their creators' knowledge or consent. All others   
property of the author; please don't borrow without permission. Some   
violence.  
  
#12 in an ongoing Gargoyles fanfic saga 

Special thanks to Proteus for the technical details. If you spot a mistake, it's   
mine, not his.  


* * *

  
"Mother Goose, this is Stork. Do you read me? Over."  
"I read you, Stork. Progress report?"  
"The cat's away."  
"Then the mice will play."  
Judge Halverson sighed. "Are these codes necessary? I feel like  
an idiot."  
"Hmm ... truth in advertising," the smug, sarcastic voice at the  
other end replied. Even across several miles, Halverson felt his instinctive  
dislike of Anton Sevarius bubble up.  
"I don't like being called a mouse," Inge Runolf, sitting beside  
Judge, muttered darkly. She ran her hand along the barrel of her Gauss  
needler with more fondness than she'd ever shown a man, or any other  
living thing, for that matter.  
The rest of the team, gathered tensely in the dim glow of the  
instrument panels, nodded in agreement. Red lettering on their dark brown  
combat suits spelled out their names: DONNER, RODRIGUEZ, KEENE,  
MATHERS, TORRES.  
Francisco Rodriguez brushed the controls, and the engine revved  
up from its prior muted hum. Their vehicle was much too sleek and sporty  
for Halverson's tastes, not military or functional enough. Too much like  
something a spoiled rich kid would buy. Which, he reflected, went a ways  
toward summing up Sevarius.  
The small craft was fast and maneuverable, almost too  
maneuverable. The controls were so sensitive as to be almost over-  
responsive. Cisco, though, played it like a virtuoso. It rose gently from its  
concealed spot among the rust-eaten machines crowding the old  
construction site, its wheels sliding up into the undercarriage, riding on a  
thin cushion of ionized particles. The slick wet ground, already icing over  
as the night's temperatures plummeted, could not hamper their  
movements.  
The seven of them were crowded but not cramped, not even with  
Keene's grenade launcher taking up enough room for an eighth person.  
Lawson Keene himself wore a grin that Halverson didn't like in the  
slightest. The big man was liable to be a problem. Bricks with a grudge  
often were. Halverson reminded himself to keep a close eye on him.  
Mathers, who was unfortunate enough to have the first name of  
Jerry and therefore could not avoid being called The Beav, chuckled to  
himself as he went for his pistol. The power holster, reacting to the nerve  
impulses in his wrist, ejected the gun into his hand. He replaced it and did  
it again. And again. And again.  
Until Inge Runolf leaned over and slammed his lower arm into  
the wall behind him. She brought her hard, Valkyrie-beautiful face right  
up to his and snarled through gritted teeth, "Knock it off, asshole!"  
Guadalupe Torres, Inge's complete physical opposite, shouldered  
her foam tank and strapped the hose and nozzle securely along the length  
of her arm. She flashed Judge a sunny smile and a thumbs up. Inge's  
opposite more than just physically.  
"Come on, break it up," Bradley Donner said, prying Inge's  
fingers from Beav's wrist. "We're not here to fight each other."  
"We're not here to fight anybody," Halverson reminded them.  
"This is a simple abduction. In and out, no fuss, no muss, no bother."  
"But now that we know where their lair is, we should go in and  
blast the bastards," Keene said. "I owe them for Burkie. He was a jerk,  
yeah, but he was family."  
"So why bring seven of us?" Donner asked. "And why with all  
our new toys?" He patted the stock of his assault carbine, running his  
thumb over the gold and black company logo imprinted on the side.  
"Just in case," Runolf said. "Judge and I have fought these  
creatures before. They're tougher than they look."  
"And they look pretty tough," Torres chimed in.  
"Yeah, but we let the big one fly away," Keene groused. He  
looked like a goodnatured farmboy, all ham-hands and red hair and  
freckles, but had the worst disciplinary record of any of the team.  
"There will be other chances," Judge said. "They're too valuable  
to destroy, especially before this study is complete. Mission priority is the  
female. We do what's necessary to get her and get out. No excessive  
violence."  
Runolf uttered a humorless chuckle. "Donner has a point, then.  
We're only equipped for excessive violence."  
"Then let's see some good judgement." Judge let his gaze fall  
heavily on Keene, who stared back belligerently before looking away.  
"You'll have trouble with him," Runolf said in a low voice.  
"Tell me about it. Okay, people, we're ready to go." He touched  
the communicator. "Mother Goose, this is Stork. Over the river and  
through the woods."  
  
* *  
"Hello! We're here!" Elisa called brightly.  
"Hello! Come in!" Fox Xanatos replied in the same cheery,  
singsong tone.  
Elisa drew back, startled. "What are you doing here?"  
Fox hefted Alex to her other hip and held the door open. "I  
brought a bunch of baby things that Alex doesn't need anymore. Us new  
moms have to stick together."  
Diane Maza pushed past her daughter and extended one hand,  
the other being occupied with a large present wrapped in pink and blue  
teddy-bear patterned paper. "I'm Derrek's mother, Diane."  
"Nice to meet you. I'm Fox. Fox Xanatos."  
Diane recoiled as if she'd reached for a snake. "Xanatos!"  
Fox winced.  
"Your husband is responsible for my son's condition!"  
"Mom ..."  
"And you come prancing in here like you own the place, bringing  
your baby, your normal, healthy baby, to flaunt in our faces?"  
"Mom! We're past that!" Elisa shot Fox a glare. "You could've  
warned us, though."  
"I'm sorry," Fox said. She looked earnestly at Diane. "David is a  
good man. He just sometimes doesn't think about the effects his actions  
have on other people."  
"Effects --!" Diane nearly gagged.  
Elisa interposed herself between them. "Mom, give her a break.  
She's crazy about him, crazy being the operative word. He even  
experimented on her once. But, listen, Goliath seems to believe him this  
time. He's had a change of heart. If he has a heart."  
"You're misjudging him," Fox said.  
"Yeah, well, there's case precedent."  
"We've got enough enemies without fighting each other," Fox  
said. "For Maggie's sake, can't we at least pretend to be friends?"  
"For Maggie's sake," Diane agreed, finally accepting Fox's  
handshake. "So, this is the little fellow who ruined Doyle's campaign. I  
never liked that man."  
"Me either!" Fox said firmly.  
"Let's not talk about that," Elisa interrupted. "I think we'd all be  
better off pretending that just never happened."  
"They kidnapped my son!"  
"And you were ready to turn over the gargoyles!"  
"Girls!" Diane said sharply. The voice of authority silenced  
Elisa, conditioned over her entire life, and also quelled Fox. "For  
Maggie's sake."  
"Did somebody call me?" Maggie waddled toward them, wings  
spread slightly to help her balance, distended stomach leading the way.  
"Hello, dear!" Diane hugged her and patted her belly. "Hello  
down there, too! It's Grandma!"  
"Ooh, heard that!" Maggie laughed. "Did you feel the kick?"  
"I certainly did!"  
"Hi, sis," Elisa said. "How's it going?" She always tried to make  
an extra effort to make Maggie feel like part of the family. The runaway  
from Ohio had never been brave enough to contact her parents, and  
except for the people of the Labyrinth, didn't have anyone in the whole  
city.  
"I feel like a walrus."  
"Don't worry. You get over it," Fox said. She frowned briefly. "I  
was karate-kicking bad guys before my epidural even wore off."  
Walking slowly to allow for Maggie, the women proceeded  
down the hall. Elisa, watching her mother's reaction, suddenly saw the  
Labyrinth through her eyes. Dark, subterranean, with thick pipes running  
along the ceilings, grates exhaling puffs of steam, distant rumblings. What  
sort of place was this for a baby?  
The hall was short, though, and the room they entered was  
brightly lit and comfortable enough to relieve Diane's misgivings. The  
walls were paneled halfway up and painted pale blue. A suspended ceiling  
hid the pipes and beams. The carpet was blue, the couch a muted grey and  
blue plaid with many throw pillows. Except for the lack of windows,  
compensated for by large photo murals of mountainscapes, it could have  
been a living room in any normal house.  
The room was further made festive by all of the decorations.  
Tissue-paper storks and baby booties dangled from the ceiling. A folding  
table was set up in front of the television, bedecked with crepe paper.  
There was a sheet cake covered with pink and blue icing roses, a few  
bowls of chips and snacks, four deep-green bottles of sparkling cider,  
plastic champagne glasses, paper plates with "Congratulations!" scrolled  
across them, and a small stack of gifts. A crib, stroller, mobile, and other  
objects, all obviously top-of-the-line and expensive were gathered in one  
corner.  
Elisa was still watching her mother's reaction and couldn't help  
laughing. Everything looked just right for a baby shower. Except for the  
two gargoyles that greeted them as they entered.  
"This is _so_ cute!" Angela held up a toy made to attatch to the  
side of the crib and play music when the ring in the bottom was pulled.  
"Alex loved that," Fox said, putting the heir to the Xanatos  
millions on the floor and letting him crawl rapidly around. "The black and  
white contrast is supposed to make the kid smarter."  
"Does it work?" Elisa asked.  
Fox shrugged and pointed. "Well, he still eats fuzz off the  
carpet."  
"Oh!" Maggie cried.  
"Don't worry about it. Yours will do the same." She snickered.  
"Owen sure does have to vacuum a lot now that Alex is mobile."  
Diane Maza was staring at the other gargoyle. "You must be ...  
Delilah."  
The white-haired female nodded slowly. "Yes. I am."  
"She's kind of shy," Maggie said, coaxing Delilah to join the  
group.  
"Elisa, she looks and sounds --"  
"Yeah."  
"Let's open presents!" Angela enthused.  
"Wait, wait, the games first!" Fox passed out pencils and paper  
and then produced a tray covered with a cloth. "Okay, under here are  
fifteen items associated with a baby. You'll have one minute to look at  
them, and then I'll take them away and you write down as many as you  
can remember."  
Elisa, with a cop's eye for detail, won that one. Her prize was a  
candy pacifier. Next, Fox made them sample different flavors of the same  
color baby food and try to guess what they were. Delilah claimed that  
prize, a bit embarrassed. Elisa noted that her language skills were much  
improved, though she clearly had some distance yet to go.  
"These are strange customs," Angela observed. "But I like the  
apricots!"  
"Did you do all this at your baby shower?" Elisa asked.  
Fox laughed. "Hardly. It wasn't so much a shower as a chance for  
all David's business associates and political connections to bribe him with  
expensive gifts. Next game, and you'll really hate this one, Maggie, is for  
each of you to take a good look at the mother-to-be and cut a length of  
this yarn that you think will go around her middle."  
Maggie groaned goodnaturedly and stood obligingly in the  
center of the room, turning this way and that. "Sure you have enough  
yarn?"  
Diane came within two inches of Maggie's girth, and none of the  
others were even close. "See?" she teased Elisa. "If you'd let me teach you  
how to sew, you would have done better. But of all of you, Derrek was the  
only one who paid attention."  
"He made my dress," Maggie said. "Well, he altered it."  
"I imagine it's not easy finding backless maternity wear," Fox  
said.  
"I cut cake now?" Delilah offered.  
Feasting on cake and sparkling cider, they all oohed and aahed as  
Maggie worked her way through the presents. There were rattles, toys,  
blankets, bottles, a gorgeous creamy leather album from Beth in Arizona,  
an exquisite woven African baby sling that Diane had brought back from  
her travels, but no clothes. Carefully, deliberately, no clothes.  
None of the others seemed to notice, but Elisa did and it bummed  
her out. How could they buy clothes for a baby whose shape was  
unknown? She'd gone shopping with her mother and seen Diane linger  
over little outfits longingly, but in the end she'd passed them by and  
bought other things.  
She suddenly felt really bad for her mother. Most of Diane's  
friends had grandchildren and were always cornering each other to show  
off pictures. Diane wouldn't be able to join them. She'd reached the  
exalted status of grandmother but would have to keep it secret. Not even  
the rest of the family could know. No birth announcements, no trips to  
Sears for portrait specials to tuck in the Christmas cards.  
Angela regarded everything with delight and awe, constantly  
sharing tidbits about childhood on Avalon and wondering what the clan  
used to do to prepare for new hatchlings.  
Elisa, trying to jolt herself out of her black mood, teasingly  
remarked without thinking, "Well, if I know Brooklyn, he'd love to show  
you."  
Angela and Maggie looked at each other, and it was only then  
that Elisa remembered Brooklyn's initial crush on Maggie, and his jealous  
reaction to Talon.  
"Oops," she murmured.  
"It's okay," Angela said, subdued. "Brooklyn ... I really like him,  
but ... oh, never mind."  
"You can tell us," Maggie said, shifting awkwardly around until  
she could put a hand on Angela's arm.  
"Oh, I just don't know," Angela said. "Broadway's awfully sweet,  
in his own bumbling way, and lately I've been thinking more about him.  
But I don't want to hurt Brooklyn! He told me something that he was  
afraid would make me stop liking him, and I don't want to let that happen,  
but whenever I'm with him now, it's all I can think of!"  
"Males are hard," Delilah said.  
Elisa choked on cider and her mother had to hammer on her  
back, all the while giving her a scandalized look.  
Fox laughed so hard she woke Alex, who had gone to sleep  
curled by her feet after deciding that discarded wrapping paper was more  
fun to munch on than cake. He joined in with a high-pitched squeal.  
Maggie held her stomach. "Oh, don't make me laugh! Oh, ow!"  
Delilah looked puzzled. "I say it wrong?"  
"No, dear, you said it right," Diane told her. "Everyone else just  
heard it wrong with their dirty ears."  
"I have to pee," Maggie announced. "See? You made me laugh.  
I'll be right back." She hoisted herself out of her chair and trundled out the  
door.  
Leaving Fox and her mother to explain to the perplexed Delilah,  
Elisa drew Angela aside. "Do you want to talk about it?"  
"I can't," Angela said, anguished. "I don't want my father to find  
out."  
Elisa thought back to the cathedral, and how Demona had  
taunted the chained Goliath. Intuition told her she was right. "Is it about  
Demona?"  
Angela gasped. "You know?"  
"She told Goliath."  
"He knows?!"  
Elisa reassured her as best she could, right up until Maggie burst,  
screaming, back into the room.  
* *  
"Creepy place," Bradley Donner observed.  
"Yeah," Beav said. "Reminds me of Aliens. Is this a stand up  
fight, or another bug-hunt?"  
"Cut the chatter, people," Halverson said sternly.  
Runolf, on point, held up a hand and they all froze. A door  
opened and closed, spilling light briefly into the dim, damp-smelling  
corridor. They heard shuffling footsteps and someone humming a lullaby.  
The female mutate hove into view, swollen with her advanced  
pregnancy. Halverson gestured to Torres and Mathers, and they crept  
forward. Their visors were even superior to the catlike night-sight the  
target was bound to possess, so they were within yards before she saw  
them.  
She gasped, fur bristling, amber eyes wide.  
Mathers lunged for her. She whirled clumsily, buffeted him with  
her wing, and fled. Torres leaped over Mathers but lost precious ground.  
The mutate let loose with a piercing, terrified shriek, and vanished  
through another door.  
"Go, go, move it!" Halverson commanded. "Keene, cover the  
rear!" He plunged after her. He shouldered through the door and was  
slapped in the eyes by the disrupted party scene before him.  
A woman in a red leather jacket drew on him. "Xanatos' goon  
squad!" she yelled in a furious, betrayed voice. He put a shot her way,  
sending her diving for cover.  
The target was being supported by a lavendar she-garg, the  
saccharine sweetie from Loch Ness, but there was nothing sweet in the  
way her eyes burned scarlet. Another gargess, familiar from their failed  
mission in the Pacific Northwest, was coming at them with a roar.  
"Take them down!" Inge Runolf yelled.  
Donner stepped to meet the white-haired female like a square  
dancer about to do an allemande right, caught her wrist, and tripped her  
headfirst into a pile of wrapping paper.  
Red leather jacket fired, her bullet punching into the wall an inch  
from Halverson's head. Mathers pasted her with a burst of hard rubber  
bullets, sure to sting and bruise and generally make her lose interest in  
busting butt.  
A child was wailing. Halverson looked, saw a baby in the middle  
of the carpet, all balled-up fists and bawling face. Donner, recovering  
from a vicious taloned kick, stumbled and toppled right toward the kid.  
Halverson swept him out of harm's way not a moment too soon.  
"Don't you touch my baby!" a woman shrieked.  
He had time to recognize her as Xanatos' wife and wonder what  
the hell she was doing down here among the mutates, when emerald  
witchlight exploded from her eyes and mouth and hammered him against  
the far wall with bone-numbing force.  
Runolf backed off from the advancing lavendar garg. A clawed  
hand came at her in a lethal arc. She threw herself backward. Her Gauss  
went hs-k! hs-k! hs-k! as dozens of thin metal slivers shredded a wing to  
leathery lace before stitching a ragged seam across inhuman flesh.  
A plump, middle-aged black woman was standing aghast in all  
the commotion. When Mathers passed her and cornered the target,  
though, this matronly lady hefted a bottle of Martinelli's and swung it like  
Ken Griffey Jr. The Beav's mouth disintegrated in a shower of broken  
teeth, shattered glass, and foaming sparkling cider.  
"Get away from her!" she said sharply, brandishing the jagged  
neck of the bottle.  
Beav goggled at her, then dropped like a sack of laundry.  
"Mom! Stay down!" Red leather jacket, who Halverson  
recognized now as not only the lead mutate's kid sister but the lead  
gargoyle's woman, didn't stay down like a good girl but rose up and shot  
Donner in the shoulder just as his carbine spat a deadly hail of teflon-  
coated bullets that would have wasted white-hair. Instead, she was only  
struck twice, blood flying in an amazing fan as she executed an almost  
balletic spin.  
Keene came raging in. "Kill them! For Burkie!"  
Mrs. Xanatos, her crying son cradled in one arm, followed up  
with a leaping karate-kick that sent Donner crashing to his knees.  
Halverson laid the butt of his pistol upside the woman's head and  
managed to catch the kid as she went down. He deposited the boy behind  
the couch.  
Bleeding and snarling, white-hair leapt upon Keene and savaged  
his face with her talons. He reacted by squeezing off a grenade, which  
plowed into the carpet next to the struggling forms of Runolf and the  
lavendar one. The combatants were hurled apart, Runolf twisting in  
midair to land on her feet and lavendar smashing through the refreshment  
table.  
The floor cratered in a gout of flame. Even through their  
protective helmets, Halverson's team was nearly deafened by the blast.  
The others were worse off, screaming their pain and shock into the ringing  
after-echoes.  
Halverson wrestled white-hair off of Keene and spun her around,  
right into Torres' capable hands. The diminutive Latina delivered what she  
liked to call the "Vulcan death-grip" and white-hair writhed, went rigid,  
and collapsed.  
"Yah! Yah! Yah!" Keene began chanting. He discarded his  
grenade launcher, brought up his carbine, and pulled the trigger. The look  
in his eyes was madness and beyond. Halverson had seen it before, knew  
what it meant, and dreaded it.  
The first armor-piercing rounds penetrated Donner's combat suit  
as if it was made of Kleenex. Most of Bradley Donner's insides exited his  
body in a chunky spray.  
Red leather jacket tackled her mom out of the way just in time.  
Lavendar, with icing in her sable hair, rose out of the cake like the  
entertainment at some nightmare bachelor party. Keene swung toward her,  
still yelling insensibly and firing wildly. Runolf, swearing in German,  
dove clear.  
Halverson knew what he had to do. He rammed the end of his  
pistol into Keene's ear and blew him away before the crazy bastard killed  
them all.  
Torres, probably the only one to keep her cool, went after the  
target mutate and extended her arm. There was a disgusting sound --  
fshplooch! -- and thick white foam belched from the nozzle strapped to  
the back of her hand. It coated the cowering mutate from neck to tail,  
leaving only her head and parts of her wings exposed. The foam hardened  
instantly, completely immobilizing her.  
"Got her!" Torres cried triumphantly, and then would say no  
more ever again as a time-lapse scarlet rose unfolded where her throat had  
been, thanks to a bullet from red leather jacket.  
Runolf kicked red leather jacket, more of a stomp than a kick,  
bringing her boot down hard on the other woman's collarbone, then kicked  
her in the temple.  
"Elisa!" Mom yelled. She seized another cider bottle, and  
Runolf, taking one look at what remained of the Beav's face, got out of  
there in a hurry.  
Halverson thumbed his communicator, knowing that Rodriguez  
had to have heard some of the ruckus and would have the vehicle ready.  
"Jack fell down!" he said urgently. "Repeat, Jack fell down!"  
"I copy," Rodriguez's voice replied.  
Lavendar leaped at Halverson and knocked him flat on his back.  
He punched her in the stomach as her claws ripped through his combat  
suit, steel mesh lining giving way. Her tail wrapped around his neck and  
began to contstrict. The bony spur on her knee gouged a hole in his side.  
He found his dropped pistol lying next to his head, grabbed it, and shot  
her.  
She cried out, doused him in gargoyle blood, and fell off of him.  
Runolf, having retrieved Keene's grenade launcher, blew a huge hole in  
the wall. Halverson scrambled to his feet. His combat suit, triggered by  
the stress of the situation, injected him with a hefty dose of synth-  
adrenaline. At once, his limbs felt so supercharged with energy that he  
was surprised he didn't glow.  
The two of them, two left out of six, dammit!, shoved the mutate  
through. She was an awkward bundle, and when Halverson let his hands  
get too close to her head she punished him with a fierce bite, but then her  
eyes widened and she sucked in a breath and generally lost all interest in  
struggling.  
Rodriguez met them at the hatch just as the first of the  
Labyrinth's human raggamuffin inhabitants were coming around, braving  
the bitter cold to see what was going on. A well-placed few shots from  
Runolf convinced them that they were better off acting like good New  
Yorkers and staying out of it.  
The mutate uttered a low, agonized cry as they bound her hard  
foam cocoon to a bench and prepared for takeoff.  
"Damn it!" Halverson said. "We weren't supposed to hurt her!"  
"She's not hurt," Rodriguez, father of six, said knowingly. "She's  
in labor."  
* *  
  
Coughing.  
Crying.  
Groaning.  
"Elisa!"  
"Lemme 'lone, Mom, it's Saturday."  
Hands. Shaking. Rough.  
"Ow! Quit it!"  
"Elisa Maria Maza!"  
That brought her around in a hurry. She opened her eyes,  
couldn't see much, blinked, tried again, and realized it was because the  
room was filling with smoke, the carpet was on fire, there was a hole in  
the wall big enough to drive her Fairlane through, and her mom was  
obscuring the rest of her view.  
"They've taken Maggie!" Diane pointed through the hole.  
"Okay." Elisa was on her feet. She looked around for allies, saw  
Fox out cold on the floor, baby Alex crying and tugging on her hair,  
Angela lying in a bloodstained wreck, and Delilah crumpled. "I'm going  
after. Help them, find Goliath."  
With that, she grabbed her gun and was on her way. She reached  
the roof of the old loading dock just in time to see the vehicle rising  
smoothly. Freezing sleet and biting wind attacked Elisa like living things.  
There was no time to think. She ran along the slick cement  
surface, her feet trying to shoot out from under her, and made one  
desperate leap. If she missed --  
She didn't miss. She caught hold of the craft and clung to it, her  
gloveless hands already numb, a straitjacket of agony wrapped around  
her. Sharp, digging pain in her collarbone and shoulder, throbbing misery  
everywhere else.  
The craft hummed onward into the night, apparently unaware of  
its external stowaway. Before they'd gone two blocks, Elisa was wishing  
they would find her and tie her up, just to be out of the cold. Before they'd  
gone seven blocks, she was hanging on by nothing but will and  
determination.  
Before they'd gone ten blocks, she knew she'd never make it.  
* *  
It was an unusual meeting of leaders.  
They'd never be friends, and trust was long and slow in coming  
after so many battles, lies, and betrayals. But they had all come to respect  
one another, and gradual bonds were forming between their clans.  
Goliath wondered again if this was a good idea. But it had been  
Elisa's suggestion, and therefore worth trying. He considered, then shoved  
two chips to the center of the table. "I'll raise you five," he rumbled.  
"You're bluffing," Talon said surely. "I'll call."  
"I'm out," David Xanatos said, dropping his cards in disgust. "I  
should be better at this game. In some other life, some parallel universe, I  
just know I'm a master."  
Goliath showed his cards with a resigned sigh, and Talon  
whooped. "I knew it! I knew you were bluffing!"  
"How?" Xanatos demanded. "His face is as unreadable as a stone  
wall."  
"Yeah," Talon said, raking in his chips, "but when he bluffs, his  
tail twitches."  
"What?" Goliath looked disbelievingly at his tail.  
"Good thing we're not playing for real money," Xanatos  
observed, "or you'd be CEO of my company by midnight."  
"Nah. Wouldn't care for the business suits." Talon gathered the  
cards and shuffled with the speed of a Vegas dealer. "Another hand?"  
"Let me get a drink first." Xanatos went to the corner wet bar.  
"Maybe it'll improve my playing. Anything for you?"  
Before either could answer, Brooklyn burst in without knocking.  
"Trouble!"  
Hudson, grimly belting on his sword, was right behind the  
younger gargoyle. "Matt just called. There be trouble in the Labyrinth."  
The table flipped as both Talon and Goliath sprang up. A bottle  
of brandy fell from Xanatos' hand and shattered. All three of them spoke  
at once, and it came out sounding something like, "Magelisalex!"  
"Elisa's mom called Matt," Brooklyn explained breathlessly,  
bounding ahead of them toward the exit. "She said they were attacked."  
"I knew I shouldn't have left them alone!" Talon raged.  
"Go. I'll be there." Xanatos darted down a different hallway,  
presumably to suit up.  
"What about Elisa?" Goliath felt fear wrap its cold fingers  
around his heart. "Why didn't she call us?"  
"I don't know. Matt said Mrs. Maza wasn't making much sense."  
"If anything has happened to Elisa --!"  
"And Maggie! What about Maggie?!"  
"I don't know!" Brooklyn said again. They reached the roof and  
the four of them were pelted with sleet.  
"Where are Lex, Broadway?"  
"Broadway be at a film festival," Hudson explained, getting onto  
a rampart. "Lex went shopping for a computer program. 'Tis just us."  
Goliath and Talon spread their wings and leaped into the night.  
* *  
Even expecting trouble, they weren't prepared for the sight that  
met their eyes.  
"Angela!" Brooklyn and Goliath cried in identical tones of  
anguish at the sight of her, lying so pale and still, one wing folded over  
herself and the other, what was left of it, extended gingerly to one side.  
Diane Maza was crouched over her, applying pressure to a  
terrible wound high on her chest. When they came in, she looked up  
tearfully at her son. "Oh, thank God! Derrek!"  
Xanatos, who had caught up with them outside, clanked in and  
tore off his helmet. His son, who had been shrieking inconsolably despite  
all of Claw's best silent efforts to soothe him, extended his chubby arms  
and wailed, "Dah-dah!" Claw handed over the baby with visible relief.  
Samson knelt beside Delilah, cradling her tenderly in his massive  
arms. His long black mane all but obscured her face.  
"Angela!" Brooklyn said softly, putting his own hands on the  
compress. "Don't go!"  
Xanatos held his son on his lap and gathered his unconscious  
wife to him, running his fingers along the hideous swelling purple gash on  
the side of her head. His expression was deadly.  
Talon held his mother, then drew back. "Where's Maggie?"  
"They took her!" Diane sobbed.  
The room stank of smoke and blood. Goliath counted four bodies  
in combat suits, one hole in the floor and another in the wall, discarded  
weapons everywhere, but no sign of Elisa.  
"Elisa went after them," Diane continued, clinging to Talon's fur.  
"She's hurt so bad, my poor baby, but she went after them. She said they  
were his! His goon squad!" She thrust an accusing finger at Xanatos.  
"I should have known!" Talon leapt forward but found Hudson in  
the way.  
"Have some sense, lad! He'd ne'er endanger his own son!"  
"Never," Xanatos said flatly.  
"He's tricked us before!" Talon tried to get around Hudson and  
still found himself blocked.  
Goliath took Talon by the shoulders. "Whatever else he may  
have done, this time he speaks true. What is important is finding Elisa and  
Maggie. Finding them, and bringing them safely home!"  
"Who else could have done this?" Diane waved at the  
destruction.  
"Not Quarrymen," Brooklyn said, stroking Angela's cheek. "Not  
Hunters, either."  
"I heard explosions, and saw a flying car," Samson said without  
looking up. "There wasn't any writing on it. Some of the Labyrinth  
dwellers saw it too. A man and a woman, and another man who came out  
of the craft." He finally raised his head and looked at Goliath. "One of  
them says he saw Elisa run and jump and catch hold of it, as it flew off."  
"Which way?" Talon's wings flexed.  
"West."  
"You can't just go chasing off after them with no idea where they  
went or who they are," Xanatos said as Talon and Goliath made ready to  
do just that.  
"They took my woman!" Talon howled at the ceiling, shaking his  
fists.  
Goliath nodded in agreement, and saw through his own fiercely  
lit eyes Hudson bending close to Brooklyn.  
"Ye'll have to go with them, lad," the older gargoyle said in a  
low voice.  
"What? Me? I can't!"  
"Ye must. They be thinking with their hearts, out o' their minds  
with worry for their mates, and 'twill lead to their downfall."  
"What about Angela? She needs me!"  
"I'll watch over her. Go, lad. The clan needs ye."  
"He is right, Brooklyn," Goliath said heavily. "I cannot trust  
myself to lead wisely."  
"This is absurd. You don't even know where you are going.  
Bring me that gun." Xanatos accepted the sleek carbine Claw offered, and  
studied the logo. "I thought so. Athens, Inc."  
"Who?" Goliath frowned.  
"A rising star among my competitors. Some former exp --  
associates of mine. Experts at weaponry design. Quite good, really."  
"How do we find them?" Talon demanded.  
"I doubt they're your enemy," Xanatos said. "They're  
manufacturers, suppliers. Someone bought this gear. Maybe we can find  
out who." He flipped open a cellular phone withdrawn from somewhere  
inside his armor and dialled.  
"Are they going to die?" Samson asked.  
"Not if they can hold on 'til dawn, lad," Hudson said. "And we'll  
be making sure they do just that."  
Talon looked at Claw. "You're in charge. Take care of my  
mother. Protect our home."  
Claw inclined his head.  
"Damn it!" Xanatos dialled again. "Son of a bitch won't tell me  
anything for 'confidentiality reasons.' Damn honest businessman!"  
"What are you doing now?" Brooklyn asked.  
"Calling Owen to have him hack into their data banks and call up  
the purchase order."  
  
* *  
She was dying.  
Maybe she was already dead, and hell was cold.  
It wasn't until she became aware that the vehicle had stopped  
moving that Elisa realized she was still among the living.  
In her mind's eye, she knew exactly what she'd do. Drop, crouch,  
wait for them to come out. Take them by surprise. Cut them down if she  
had to. Rescue Maggie and get out of here.  
In reality, it took the better part of a minute to unclench her  
frozen fingers, and then she simply slid weakly off and puddled on the  
ground. Her hair lay in a sodden mass against her neck, trickling ice water  
down the inside of her jacket.  
The engines were silent. There was no sign of movement other  
than her own. She had no idea how long she'd been hanging dazed on the  
back of the craft.  
She took in her surroundings. A round, domed room nearly as  
big as a sports stadium, filled with a variety of cars, vans, helicopters, and  
other more exotic pieces of transportation. Parts of the dome looked as if  
they were made to retract, and steel doors reminiscent of airplane hangars  
were set in the walls. Several smaller doors, and even at this distance she  
could see the security-coded keypads winking red and green.  
No people in sight.  
The straitjacket of pain had been replaced with one of those  
medieval torture devices that clamped and twisted. Her left arm was  
mostly useless. The only way she knew for sure she was alive was because  
it hurt so much every time she took a breath. Not only did her chest ache  
and throb from the pellets she'd been shot with, but the freezing air had  
left her throat raw.  
It would be so easy to just lay her head on the cold hard floor  
and go to sleep. When she awoke, surely she'd be in her own apartment,  
with Goliath by her side, watching her in that endearing protective way of  
his.  
Instead, she forced herself to get up. Her legs didn't want to  
support her, and her feet felt like solid blocks inside her shoes. She  
staggered around to the hatchway and opened it, her gun gripped in a stiff,  
clawlike hand.  
Nobody. No goons, no Maggie.  
She pressed her forehead against the curved hull and tried to get  
her thoughts in order. When they were as clear as she figured they were  
going to get, she lurched toward one of the small doors.  
Some of the trucks had writing on their sides. General Industries,  
it read simply. Brown letters on white, nothing flashy.  
Elisa frowned. General Industries? Makers of household  
appliances, auto parts, and office equipment? A cover for Xanatos?  
She frowned harder. Not even Xanatos would have sicced his  
goons on his wife and kid. Not the son that meant more to him than life  
itself.  
But, if not Xanatos, then who?  
She reached one of the keypads and was about to try her luck,  
although sure that she would set off alarms and bring every guard in the  
place running, when the light suddenly switched from red to green and the  
door hissed open.  
Elisa threw herself against the wall and brought up her gun. A  
man in a plain brown coverall entered, clipboard in hand. Muttering to  
himself, he did not even glance her way but proceeded toward one of the  
trucks.  
She wasted no time slipping through the door. It hissed closed  
behind her, leaving her in a hall with bland grey walls and ribbed rubber  
flooring, with muted flourescents every forty feet or so.  
How was she going to find Maggie in this maze, a Labyrinth a  
hundred times worse than the one they'd left? No helpful Ariadne was  
going to pop up with a ball of twine, and Elisa was pretty sure she  
wouldn't find any "you are here" maps either. General Industries was a  
front for something, she didn't know what, and she was sure they wouldn't  
take kindly to snooping presence.  
Corridor after corridor, past rooms of computers and rooms of  
test tubes and rooms of caged apathetic animals. Time and again, Elisa  
barely avoided detection by the staff, some of whom were in brown,  
others who boasted nice lab coats, an ominous few in full radiation suits.  
Voices were coming her way. With nowhere else to go, she  
ducked through a door and found herself in a cavernous chamber. Her  
body, which had only just begun to warm up by making her tingle and  
sting all over, protested at the chill in the room. Tendrils of white mist,  
probably from liquid nitrogen, crept around her calves.  
The room was dark yet palely lit at the same time, most of the  
illumination coming in a cloudy, frosty glow from the tall cylinders that  
marched off into the distance. Each cylinder was rounded like a capsule,  
eight feet tall, and set into a metal base. Tubes and wires led into the  
capsules. The glass surfaces were covered with thin skins of ice, and  
shadowy forms could barely be seen within.  
Elisa crept to the closest one and rubbed away a small circle of  
frost. She peered in.  
Suspended inside was the body of a naked man. The tubes and  
wires led into his flesh. His eyes were closed, his expression slack and  
dead.  
His face was that of Anton Sevarius.  
"Derrek said he was dead," she breathed. "Cryogenics?"  
She spun to the next cylinder and rubbed a window, and her  
breath caught in her lungs.  
The man in that capsule was also Anton Sevarius.  
She tried the next.  
Sevarius.  
Her eyes scanned the ranks and ranks of capsules. Hundreds in  
all.  
She put her hands over her face. "Clones?" she whispered. "An  
army of Sevarius clones? All on ice? Why?"  
And then she knew. Sevarius must have found a way to transfer  
his mind from a dying body to a new one. Xanatos' quest for immortality  
had inspired the mad scientist to this hideous conclusion.  
She had a sudden urge to find an ax and start smashing glass.  
* *  
"Now, my dear, don't struggle so. You don't want anything to  
happen to your baby, do you?"  
Maggie turned in horror toward that voice. "Sevarius!"  
He smiled at her, a predatory shark's grin, and snapped a rubber  
glove on his wrist.  
"When Talon finds --" she started, then groaned in pain as  
another contraction built with crushing pain.  
Her captors had sprayed her with something that dissolved her  
foam cast, but before she could even begin to get her bearings they'd  
strapped her to a table. An operating table. In a well-lit room that reeked  
of hospital smells and was filled with glinting steel instruments. One wall  
was entirely taken up with a computer and monitor screens.  
Maggie strained against her bonds, but the metal-reinforced  
nylon restraints would have challenged her mate.  
"When's your due date, dear?" Sevarius asked, and by his tone he  
could have been a concerned country doctor.  
"Let me go!" The bright new-penny taste of terror filled her  
mouth. Throughout her pregnancy, she'd been worried sick about the  
birth, the health of the baby, and a thousand other things. Never in her  
worst nightmares had she imagined this. Anything but this! Anything but  
having Sevarius deliver her baby!  
"Now, you're not being very cooperative. I'm only trying to help  
you, after all."  
"Help me?!"  
"You don't need to beg. Really, Maggie, I do have your best  
interests at heart. Yours and your children's. You do know, it's twins."  
She fell back against the table and stared at him.  
"Oh, yes, I'm quite sure of it." He placed a device against her  
stomach and turned a dial. "Do you hear that? Two little heartbeats.  
Under a good deal of stress, I'm afraid. You're not doing them any good  
by struggling."  
The sound of her children's hearts, thumping rapidly within her,  
brought tears to Maggie's eyes.  
"Believe me, it is very important to me that they survive."  
"You want to experiment on them!" she cried.  
"I want to examine them," he corrected. "I want to see if the  
instability of the mutagenics affects them. Surely you've noticed the  
changes?"  
"What changes?"  
He called up a picture on one of his monitors. "This was Derrek  
-- Talon, as he prefers -- shortly after his metamorphosis. Note the tufts of  
facial fur, the coloration, the prominent ears, and of course the tail."  
Another screen lit up, another picture appeared. "This is the same subject,  
several months later. Quite a difference, wouldn't you say? The tail has  
receded, the ears likewise, and the texture and coloring of the fur has  
changed. Clear proof that the mutation has continued."  
Maggie looked back and forth between the images, her lip  
quivering between her sharp teeth. She remembered when they'd all  
noticed their tails beginning to shrink, gradually, week by week becoming  
shorter until they were bobcats' tails, then disappearing entirely. Fang had  
tried to talk about it once but Talon refused to discuss it.  
"So, naturally, I'm quite concerned about the effect this will have  
on your children. You can't tell me that you two proud parents aren't also  
worried. Isn't that why Talon came looking for me? How was I to know he  
was interested in my services? He is the sort to carry a grudge. That is  
why I didn't dare approach you openly with my offer."  
"What offer?"  
"Why, to help you, of course! Who else would be able to deliver  
your children? Surely you didn't plan to crawl into the closet all by  
yourself and then lick them clean!"  
"You captured me! Shot my friends!"  
He sighed exaggeratedly. "I had ordered them to avoid excessive  
violence. However, your friends gave at least as good as they got. And I'm  
told they initiated the attack."  
"You lie! You always lie! Why should I trust you?"  
"My dear girl," he said, stroking her brow as she tried to recoil  
from his touch, "what choice do you have?"  
She turned her head away, snarling and weeping. Not like this!  
her mind cried out. Not him! She refused to let him get his hands on her  
baby. She would resist!  
Another contraction seized her, and this time she felt the gush as  
her water broke.  
* *  
Owen Burnett pursed his lips as the words came up on his  
computer screen. "Mr. Xanatos, sir?"  
"I'm still here."  
"I've obtained a copy of the purchase order for that particular  
weapon's serial number."  
"Excellent! Is there a name?"  
"Yes, sir. Inge Runolf."  
Startled silence from Xanatos' end.  
"I've taken the liberty of calling up her employment profile,"  
Owen said even as he did so. A picture of the tight-jawed Valkyrie  
appeared in the upper corner, along with a list of her physical statistics  
and other details.  
"Wasn't she listed among the dead in Scotland?" Xanatos asked.  
"Her and Judge Halverson."  
Owen heard voices in the background. Fox, sounding groggy and  
in pain, said, "Halverson! That was the name on the one that hit me!"  
"Delilah and I fought him!" Talon. "He was working for  
Sevarius!"  
"Apparently, we were premature in our assessment of the body  
count, sir," Owen said. He could also hear Alex, and was relieved to note  
that the boychild was shaken up but unharmed.  
"Is there an address?" Goliath's deep voice.  
Before Xanatos could begin to relay, Owen replied, "There is.  
General Industries." He relayed the information.  
"Good work, Owen. That'll be all."  
* *  
"Hold still!" Inge Runolf ordered.  
Judge Halverson winced as she poked the needle through his skin  
and drew it tight. The stitches would hold together the painful gouge long  
enough for the coagulant spray to scab it over, but he was having a hard  
time staying in place.  
Runolf, for all of her martial skills, evidently had neglected both  
first aid and home ec. She might as well have been using a stapler, which  
would have at least been quicker.  
Cisco Rodriguez stuck his head in. "There's a problem in the  
cryo unit!" he said urgently. "Power failures all over the grid. Could be  
mechanical, but we might have an intruder."  
Halverson tugged his combat suit back into place but left the  
helmet. He wouldn't need it. "Let's move!"  
* *  
Elisa hoisted herself into the ventilation shaft. She was sure that  
her actions would draw attention, which was her only chance of finding  
Maggie.  
It had been a stroke of luck to discover that each of the capsules  
was simply hooked up to one of a series of small power strips. She'd  
pulled the plug on a dozen or more of the strips, randomly, watching with  
morbid triumph as the lights in the cylinders faded.  
The thought that she might also be disconnecting legitimate  
cryogenically-preserved people did cross her mind, but she dismissed it as  
unlikely. Even if they all weren't clones of Sevarius, odds were that they  
were clones of people of his type. Not really murder, then. More of an  
abortion.  
That made her worry even more for poor Maggie, and for her  
unborn niece or nephew.  
She was just in time. No sooner had she hauled the grate back  
into place than the door opened, and her good friends in brown came in  
with weapons at the ready.  
The lead guy and the blond woman were the same ones she'd  
been seeing for years, starting with the time they'd tranquilized Goliath  
and she'd led them on a wild chase through the park. Pretending to be  
Cyberbiotics operatives, really working for Xanatos, and now somehow in  
league with Sevarius.  
Well, figuring that the scientist had done extensive work not only  
for Xanatos but for Thailog and Demona, it was only reasonable that by  
now he'd amassed enough of a fortune to maintain his own private thugs.  
These two, though, led charmed lives.  
Charmed, or else ... her gaze once again fell on the rows of  
cylinders.  
She massaged and stretched her exhausted, aching limbs as best  
she could without bringing new flares of agony.  
"The power strips are unplugged!" the woman called to her  
companions.  
"Search the room," the lead guy ordered. He moved quietly yet  
purposefully, alert.  
Elisa tensed. When he reached a spot below her, she kicked the  
grate out and jumped after it. The heavy grate struck the man, and her  
weight finished the job of driving him to the floor. A tremendous sheet of  
pain flared over her but she threw her knees into his back. He wasn't  
wearing a helmet so she cracked him on the head with the butt of her  
pistol. He grunted and went limp.  
A shot squealed off of metal, and Elisa turned to see another man  
running in her direction. She rolled and fired, crying out as her injuries  
bounced and jostled. Her first shot took him in the chest but didn't even  
slow him; the next one struck his knee. The armor there must have been  
weaker because he went down writhing and holding his leg.  
The blond came at her.  
Elisa ran behind one row of capsules, feeling like a kid playing  
hide-and-seek in the corn, which was absurd for someone born and raised  
in New York. She'd never seen a cornfield except for on television. But  
the image persisted.  
She took refuge behind one of the dark ones and watched the  
woman's shadow through some of the others. Trying to hold her breath for  
fear the plumes in the chill air would give her away, Elisa waited until the  
blond was almost on her, then leaped out, planted her elbow in the other  
woman's midsection, wrestled her gun away, and pressed the muzzle of  
her pistol under the shelf of her jaw.  
"Where's Maggie?"  
* *  
"Push! Harder! Oh, that's very good. Remember your breathing,"  
Sevarius coached.  
Maggie sobbed helplessly as she followed his directions. Giving  
birth wasn't like having to use the bathroom. Once it started, there was no  
way to hold it. Loathesome as it was, she had to comply with Sevarius.  
"I see a fuzzy little head," he said, horridly cheerful. "One more  
good push!"  
Every muscle locked. Maggie felt like her bones were shaking  
apart. She bore down hard as she could, until red firebursts filled her  
vision. She swam in a haze, nearly blacking out, and the only thing that  
brought her back was a sound, a pitiful sound somewhere between a mewl  
and a cry.  
"It's a girl," Sevarius announced.  
"Give her to me!" Maggie threw herself upward as far as she  
could, but only got the barest glimpse of a small form as the scientist  
turned away.  
"Fascinating! Her eyes are sealed shut, just like a newborn  
kitten's! No teeth; good news if you were planning to breastfeed. The  
wings appear proportionate for her size ..."  
"Give me my baby!!" In a burst of strength, one of her wrist  
restraints tore free.  
Sevarius set the infant in a hospital bassinet and came toward  
her. "Now, my dear, let's not do anything antisocial --"  
She swung, and though her claws were unable to reach him, the  
dangling end of the strap whipped briskly across his mouth, splitting his  
lips.  
Beyond him, she could see something tiny moving in the  
bassinet, something with a tawny-gold pelt and dusky rosette markings. Its  
cries pierced straight to her heart.  
Another contraction, even deeper and glassier than before, put a  
quick end to her fight. As she gasped for breath, Sevarius pressed an air-  
injecting hypo against her neck. Almost immediately, she felt a dull  
heaviness in her limbs.  
He wiped blood from his mouth. "Naughty girl," he said, but all  
pretense at good humor and kindliness was utterly absent.  
Tight, tense, unbearable spasm, even with the drug rapidly  
coursing through her. Maggie screamed until she thought her throat would  
burst.  
"Here's number two," she heard Sevarius say from far away. "A  
boy."  
She tried to move, tried to raise her head, but it was a stone  
tumbling down a deep dark well and pulling her after it.  
* *  
Owen's voice spoke into his ear. "I decoded some secret files  
about General Industries, sir. I thought they might interest you."  
Xanatos diverted part of his attention from flying to a peripheral  
section of his HUD.  
Ahead of him, Goliath and Talon flew valilantly on, battling the  
elements while his armor carried him effortlessly along. Brooklyn, smaller  
than the two leaders but more agile and certainly thinking a bit more  
clearly, was pacing them.  
"Go ahead, Owen."  
"To begin with, sir, General stands for GENetic Engineering  
Research And Laborotories. You should now be receiving a directory of  
some of their most top-secret projects."  
"Thank you, Owen. Not quite an in-flight movie, but it'll pass the  
time."  
* *  
She crawled down the ventilation shaft, every movement a new  
adventure in pain, every new sound making her jerk and look back over  
her shoulder, half-expecting to see some ugly slobbering reptilian monster  
loping after her.  
The blond had seemed sincere, and with a gun to her face had  
surely been motivated to be truthful, but the further Elisa went the more  
she became certain that she was never going to find Maggie, let alone get  
out. The complex was huge, a regular ant farm.  
Tiny squares of light shone through a grate in the floor. Elisa  
crept to it and peered down, and saw with dismay that she was directly  
over a large cafeteria, about one-third full of people in lab coats or  
uniforms. To her further dismay, she realized that the metal shaft was only  
bolted to the ceiling instead of tucked away out of sight.  
She inched forward, and her left shoulder chose that moment to  
just give out like an old tire. She fell on her side with a k-ponk! that  
sounded big as a gong, and forced herself to instantly hold still despite the  
pain that rolled down the left side of her body. She ground her teeth,  
trying not to groan, hot tears trickling down her cheeks.  
If anybody noticed the noise, it went unremarked. When the pain  
subsided a bit, though nowhere close to its former levels, Elisa resumed  
her movements. She lay flat, scooting along by pulling with her right hand  
and elbow and pushing with her feet.  
She was on the grate now, staring down at a lab tech below her.  
He was eating a pastrami sandwich and reading "The Dilbert Principle,"  
and Elisa was suddenly sure that the grate would fall and she'd end up in  
his lap.  
That didn't happen, and then the grate was behind her. An  
eternity later, the cafeteria was also behind her. Once back on more solid  
ground, so to speak, she laid her head down and shivered with reaction.  
Her shoulder was on fire, and a ginger exploration of the flesh around it  
found a bulge that was surely the end of her collarbone sticking up like a  
broken pencil. It hadn't broken the skin, small favors.  
"Oh, man," she whispered. "This is nuts. I'm going to die up here  
and they'll only notice when I start to stink!"  
The sound of her own voice got her moving again. It was only a  
matter of time before somebody noticed the goons missing, and found  
them sealed in the cryo tanks. And then, friends and neighbors, there'd be  
hell to pay.  
She reached an intersection, a capital T with the crossbar dead  
ahead. Both ways looked equally promising, or equally futile.  
Sobbing?  
Elisa held her breath to make sure it wasn't her own. Sure  
enough, distant muffled sobbing down the lefthand passage.  
She hitched herself around the corner without hurting anything  
too badly and found the strength to resume crawling. The sobbing was  
both a beacon and a balm, making her own suffering diminish and  
renewing her purpose.  
The grate was on the side instead of the bottom, and she found  
herself looking into an operating room. Medical equipment, computers,  
instruments. The table was stainless steel, orbited by shiny metal devices  
on folding metal arms, looking exactly like something out of a looney's  
tale of alien abduction, and lying on it, covered with a scrub-green sheet,  
was her brother's mate.  
One of Maggie's arms was securely strapped down. The other  
dangled limply, a ragged shred of tough nylon hanging from the wrist. Her  
head was turned to the side, her eyes shut, tears dampening her golden fur.  
No sign of Sevarius.  
Elisa tried to pull the grate in and was shocked to find that she  
barely had the strength to budge it. When it came free, it did so with a  
huge scraping sound, but Maggie didn't even open her eyes.  
"Maggie!" she whispered, loud as she dared, though after the  
noise the grate had made, it was probably a moot point.  
No reaction from Maggie.  
Elisa levered herself through the opening. Her questing feet  
found the seat of a chair, but just as she trusted her weight to it, the casters  
shot it out from under her and she crashed to the floor. What wanted to be  
a throat-shattering scream came out only as a harsh gasp, but for several  
seconds all she could do was lay where she'd fallen, fighting to keep from  
passing out.  
At last, she was able to get up. She made her way to the table and  
touched Maggie's arm. "Maggie? Hey, sis, it's okay. It's Elisa. I'm getting  
you out of here."  
Amber eyes slid briefly open, still mostly covered by the inner  
membrane. Elisa realized that Maggie was doped to the gills.  
"Bayy-beee," Maggie exhaled.  
Elisa struggled with the strap. "The baby will be --" she broke off  
as she glanced at Maggie's middle and saw it much smaller, shrunken.  
When she'd greeted them at the shower, it had been firm and taut and  
round, drumlike, a cariacture of a swallowed basketball.  
Just then, she heard a sound she'd previously dismissed. A faint  
rustling and mewling.  
Her mind instantly flashed back to a couple of kids sitting in  
front of a grocery store, a cardboard box between them and several cans  
stacked in front. A sign, written in crayon, had read: free kitty food, kitty  
included. In the box, tumbling over each other, had been six grey kittens.  
One of them had gone home in the Fairlane, nearly causing a wreck when  
it had gotten under the brake pedal, and that had been Cagney.  
Slowly, like someone in a strange dream, Elisa turned toward the  
noise. Two covered basinettes or incubators, hooked up to all sorts of  
equipment.  
She found herself standing by them with no memory of crossing  
the room. Stuck to each lid was a post-it note. Across the top was a  
cartoon of a brain in a jar flanked by two crackling electrodes, over the  
legend: FROM THE BRAIN OF ANTON SEVARIUS. And below that,  
in block printing, were two words that didn't make any sense to Elisa.  
RUMPLETEAZER on the right.  
MUNGOJERRIE on the left.  
Heart in her throat, Elisa lifted off the lids. "Ohhhh," was all she  
could say as she beheld her niece and nephew for the first time.  
They both had funny, bristly, stiff hair on their heads that  
reminded Elisa of baby cheetahs she'd seen in some nature documentary.  
The girl's fur was the same color as Maggie's but dotted with darker  
brown. The boy was the same shade as Derrek, and he too had the  
shadows of darker markings. Their eyes were squinched shut. Their faces  
were startlingly human except for the fur, with button noses instead of  
muzzles. The girl had her tiny fist in her mouth, while her brother tried to  
suck on air. Fragile, batlike wings were folded against their backs.  
She reached in and stroked the boy's cheek. He turned his head  
toward her hand.  
"Hey, kiddo," she said softly. "I'm your Aunt Elisa."  
The girl uttered a thin wail. Elisa touched her hand, and felt tears  
come to her eyes when those little fingers wrapped around her own.  
"Nothing's going to happen to you. I promise."  
"Elisa?" Maggie mumbled weakly.  
She went to her. "Maggie! Are you okay?"  
"Babies?"  
"They're here. They're beautiful."  
"Sevarius."  
"Yeah, I know. I'm getting all of you out of here."  
"Can't. Help ... babies."  
"I will. What's Sevarius done? He's got some code or medicine  
or something written on them. Has he given them anything?"  
"Names," Maggie said dreamily. "Because they're practically  
cats."  
"Huh?"  
Her head rolled to the side and she began singing "Memories" in  
a terrible, broken voice that was even worse than her earlier sobs.  
A light on the wall began to flash, and from the intercom next to  
it, a computerized but commanding voice issued. "Interuder alert. All  
staff. Sector 12. Intruder alert."  
"Oh, hell," Elisa said. "That's me. Come on, Maggie, let's get this  
thing unhooked."  
"No time. Save my babies, Elisa, please!"  
"I'm not leaving you here!"  
"Don't let him get them," Maggie begged. Her free hand clutched  
at Elisa's jacket and fell away.  
There was no way she could carry the twins and support Maggie  
as well. She was too drugged up to move, even if Elisa had been whole  
and healthy.  
"I'll come back for you," she vowed, taking another sheet from a  
shelf and tearing it into wide strips to swaddle the infants. "I'll find  
Derrek, and we'll come back for you."  
Maggie smiled, sighed and sank back into a stupor.  
She shrugged out of her jacket, eliciting a new icepick of pain  
from her collarbone, and fashioned two crude slings out of the rest of the  
sheet. Tucked one baby into each sling. Put her jacket back on and zipped  
it shut, leaving room for air. Awkward, but she had to keep them secure  
and warm.  
Her arms around the babies, cradling them to her chest, Elisa  
hurried out the door.  
* *  
  
"There has to be a more subtle way to --" Brooklyn began.  
Goliath and Talon roared together and peeled back a layer of  
sheet steel like it was a wet decal. Alarms brayed into the freezing night.  
"--do this," he finished.  
"INTRUDER ALERT! SECTOR 12!"  
"So much for subtlety," Xanatos commented. "I might as well get  
in on this too." He aimed his wrist laser and cut a circle in the cement slab  
revealed by the missing steel.  
Goliath delivered a punch that popped the circle down through a  
hole. Without so much as a pause, Talon was through and running down  
the dark corridor, yelling for Maggie. Goliath, saving his breath but his  
heart doubtless calling out for Elisa with just as much fervency, overtook  
him.  
"So much for me being the leader," Brooklyn muttered. He  
jumped through the hole and took off after the others, with Xanatos  
behind him.  
A group of men, security-guard-types and not commandos,  
rounded a corner in response to the alarm. The looks on their faces as  
their flashlights found Goliath and Talon bearing down on them would  
have been funny, if those faces hadn't been mashed to pulp a heartbeat  
later. By the time Brooklyn got there, the men looked like bowling pins  
after someone threw a powerful strike.  
All they way here, Brooklyn had been psyching himself up to  
deal with armed, organized resistance. He was ready to kick ass and take  
names, as Matt Bluestone sometimes said, and pay back every scratch  
these creeps had put on Angela. Goliath and Talon were even more  
vehement, and Xanatos was ready to dish out some vengeance for the  
threat to his son and the harm to his wife. They would have gone up  
against battle-armored superheroes, cheerfully.  
Instead, corridor after corridor and level after level, all they  
encountered were security guards and terrified people in lab coats. Poor  
fare to feed the hunger of revenge.  
Until, up ahead in a babble of raised voices, one stood out.  
"What the devil is going on?" demanded the familiar tones of  
Doctor Sevarius.  
At which point, Talon went purely bugshit. It was the only  
phrase Brooklyn felt adequately described the mutate's reaction. Berserk  
didn't even scratch the surface.  
Talon launched himself into the cafeteria. He looked twice his  
normal size, fur bristling like a Halloween cat, sizzling with so much  
electricity that tables and chairs were flung from his path before he even  
got near them.  
He scythed through the bystanders and was on Sevarius before  
the scientist knew what hit him. One of Sevarius' arms came off with a  
horrible overcooked-drumstick sound that would haunt Brooklyn for  
years.  
"Wait!" Brooklyn yelled over the din. "We need him to tell us  
where they are!"  
"Electric eels!" Talon snarled. "See if you can fake this!"  
Every flourescent light in the cafeteria simultaneously blew out.  
Talon, wreathed in blue-white energy, channeled every last volt of it into  
Sevarius. His jittering death-dance lasted only an instant before ending in  
an explosion of charred flesh.  
Something shot from the blackened, firecracker-in-a-tomato  
wreck of his skull. It was a metal projectile the size of a bullet, whizzing  
toward the door.  
A metal-clad hand seized it out of the air. "Braintaping," Xanatos  
said clearly. "Recording his every thought and experience, to transfer  
from one clone to another."  
Goliath looked as repulsed as Brooklyn felt.  
"This is the real Anton Sevarius," Xanatos said, holding up his  
fist. He slowly clenched it. Something cracked. Xanatos squeezed harder.  
There was a grinding noise. Flakes of metal sifted through his fingers.  
Grim satisfaction filled Talon's smile. He flung aside what was  
left of the body.  
Anyone still mobile was fleeing from the four of them. Goliath  
reached out almost idly and caught one by the neck. "Where is Sevarius'  
lab?"  
* *  
Judge Halverson awoke to the sound of the alarm.  
It was something that should have instantly jolted him out of  
sleep, and something that should have been much louder.  
He understood everything the moment he opened his eyes, and  
found himself slumped on the bottom of one of the cryogenic storage  
capsules. Not dead and replaced, because he was still wearing his combat  
suit and still in a hell of a lot of pain. No, the Maza woman must've  
dumped him in here while he was unconscious. Lucky she hadn't switched  
it on, or he would have woken up a giant Popsicle.  
He looked left and right, and confirmed his suspicions when he  
saw Inge and Cisco similarly sealed up. Inge was alert and angry, Cisco in  
pain and sporting a bloody bandage around his knee.  
"We have to get out of here!" Inge mouthed.  
Judge nodded. He experimentally hammered on the curved glass,  
but it was too thick to be broken that way. Inge was obviously unarmed or  
she would've tried something by now. In fact, he could see her beloved  
Gauss lying in a swirl of white mist a few yards away.  
His own holster was empty, but his captor hadn't taken time to  
search him thoroughly because his little personal luxury, a derringer-sized  
gyroc pistol, was still on him. He drew it, aimed at the capsule's seal, and  
fired.  
Moments later, Inge was retrieving her Gauss.  
* *  
"Maggie!" Talon cried.  
She rolled her head his way, eyelids fluttering sleepily. She  
murmured something, a fragment of a song. Talon was at her side,  
cradling her head, looking like he wished he could kill Sevarius all over  
again.  
The room was a mess. A grate was lying on a desk, a chair was  
tipped over, scraps of green cloth were scattered on the floor.  
"Goliath, look!" Brooklyn reached under a desk and came up  
with a gun. "It's Elisa's!"  
"Then where is Elisa?"  
"And where are the babies?" Xanatos asked.  
"What?" Talon whipped around.  
"They've been born. Look." Xanatos gestured at the basinettes  
and held up a pad of paper covered with scrawled notes. "Twins. Girl and  
a boy."  
"Maggie," Talon said urgently, stroking her brow. "Maggie,  
where are our children?"  
"Derrek ..." she breathed. "Elisa ..."  
"She's been drugged," Brooklyn said.  
"Here." Xanatos rummaged. "This should counteract the  
sedative."  
"Sevarius!" Maggie sat up, wild-eyed, lunging against her bonds.  
"Damn, that was quick!" Brooklyn observed.  
When Talon saw the restraints, he growled fiercely and shredded  
them, then held his mate close.  
"He's dead," Talon assured her. "This time, he really is."  
"Elisa took the babies. I made her go." She buried her face  
against Talon's chest. "I never even got to hold them!"  
"You will," he promised.  
"We must find her," Goliath said. He strode to the door, yanked  
it open, and there stood a man in a brown combat suit identical to the ones  
covering corpses back in the Labyrinth.  
The man, whose nametag spelled out HALVERSON, had a  
ridiculously small gun, but when he fired, Goliath went down with  
authority.  
"Surrender now," Halverson said, stepping over Goliath's  
outstretched arm.  
A woman appeared behind him, blond and cruel, carrying a  
strange weapon that Brooklyn instinctively knew was the one that had hurt  
Angela.  
Xanatos stepped forward. "Well, well. Former employees. Too  
late to fire you."  
The two looked startled, but that didn't stop them both from  
leveling their guns at the man in the red and black armor.  
Talon pulled Maggie off the table and sheltered her with his  
wings and body.  
Brooklyn realized he was still holding Elisa's gun. No time to  
think about it or worry that he'd never used one before. He pointed and  
pulled, just before Halverson tried to blow a hole in his former boss.   
Aiming for the guy's head, he instead hit the tiny but powerful gun. It  
exploded in his hand, turning that hand into something that looked like a  
soggy sponge with a few toothpicks sticking out of it.  
Xanatos' metal-plated fist pistoned out and shattered Halverson's  
nose. The man flew backward and out of sight. "That's for Fox."  
The woman sent a snapping and hissing silvery jet at Xanatos.  
The needles broke harmlessly against his armor. And then Brooklyn was  
on her, roaring, grabbing her blond ponytail and playing crack-the-whip  
against the wall. Her forehead left a crater in the plaster and she collapsed  
in a boneless heap.  
"That's for Angela," he said.  
  
* *  
The strident bray of the alarms made the babies cry. The strident  
bray of the alarms also meant that nobody else could hear the babies cry.  
Typical mixed blessing, Elisa thought as she ran down yet another  
corridor.  
Ran wasn't the best word for it. A quick stagger was the best she  
could manage, and she was rapidly tiring. Twice now, she'd nearly  
blundered into frantic groups of people. To make matters worse, she had  
lost her gun somewhere along the line.  
She would never find her way back to the hangar, and even if she  
did, what then? Steal a truck? Hotwire a helicopter?  
EXIT.  
The sight of the sign was so utterly unexpected that she nearly  
went past it, thinking that it had to be a hallucination brought on by pain  
and panic.  
DO NOT OPEN. ALARM WILL SOUND.  
"What have I got to lose?" Elisa said, and shoved the bar.  
Alarm did indeed sound, one more voice in the crowd. But the  
door opened, and fresh, cold air swirled around her face. She'd worked up  
quite a sweat, and that moisture evaporated instantly in a bone-deep chill.  
She emerged onto a large concrete surface ringed with an iron  
waist-high fence. Through the wind and sleet, she saw many sparkling  
lights below and distant. The clouds were heavy and black against a sky  
beginning to lighten. Had she really been here all night?  
The complex behind her wasn't underground so much as it was  
built into the side of a hill. She could see the hangar dome on the extreme  
far side and was amazed how far she'd managed to come, but also  
dismayed because there was no way she could reach the vehicles within.  
The wind let up a little, and she saw a narrow staircase leading  
down. The steps were slick with ice and water, a fire-escape switchback  
that descended hundreds of feet to a parking lot. Trying to navigate that,  
in her condition and carrying her precious burdens, was just plain crazy.  
The door alarm sounded again.  
A man in a brown combat suit stood by it. A bloodstained  
bandage was around his knee, he leaned heavily on an aluminum crutch,  
but he had a gun. "You shot me, you bitch," he said.  
Crazy or not, the staircase was her only chance. A bullet spanged  
off the iron fence ahead of her, followed by a second that hit just behind  
her as she fled along the edge. The babies squalled and squirmed in her  
arms. She didn't dare let go of either of them to secure a handhold.  
Her feet stuttered on a slick step and even over the whistle of the  
wind she heard her ankle pop. A bullet passed through her hair as she  
stumbled. It was all too easy to see herself tumbling down the stairs,  
coming to rest in a broken pile on the next landing, helpless and unable to  
move while her pursuer descended to finish her off.  
She was spared that fate, this time anyway, by catching herself  
on the handrail with her left elbow. It sent a bolt of pure agony slamming  
up to her shoulder and across her chest. She shrieked but kept going,  
splashing through puddles of sleet on the landing, caroming off the far  
rail, making the turn and starting down again so now a level of stairs were  
between her and the gunman.  
Cold, so cold. Her breath was ice and fire in her lungs.  
Another bullet struck sparks off the steps. His aim was terrifying!  
She didn't even want to think about what he could do unwounded and in  
good weather!  
Down, down, another flight and another, the cars in the parking  
lot seeming as far away now as they'd been when she started. She'd never  
make it; it was only a matter of time until --  
She slipped. Her right foot shot out from under her and went  
through the space between stairs. She landed on her hip and right  
shoulder, twisting to shelter the babies. Not even able to scream anymore,  
just panting like a hunted animal at the end of its strength, she scrambled  
to her feet again.  
Just in time to get shot. The bullet only grazed her thigh but was  
enough to knock her back, against the rail, over the rail.  
She fell, and this time there would be no strong, magnificent  
Goliath swooping to catch her. Only the parking lot.  
The world was silent except for the wind. Even the babies had  
stopped crying. She could still feel the warmth of their tiny bodies against  
her, the only warmth in all the world, the only way she knew they were  
still alive. She turned herself to absorb the impact, even though it might  
be kinder to let them die in the fall.  
* *  
Cisco Rodriguez saw the woman fall and knew it was over. He  
turned and began hauling himself up the stairs.  
The outer door opened. Probably Halverson, responding to the  
alarm which also triggered a signal in their visor HUD's.  
"It's all right," he yelled above the wind. "I got the intruder! She's  
dead!"  
"RRRRRRAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!"  
Something truly enormous lunged at him. It was wounded, he  
could clearly see the raw and tattered hole in its side, and that was the last  
thing he saw before two huge clawed hands settled on either side of his  
skull and the world ended in a flash of white light.  
* *  
Xanatos, who had been able to link up to the HUD signal used  
by Halverson's team and led them to the door, knew it was pointless trying  
to reason with him.  
With one wing hanging at an unnatural angle, Goliath couldn't  
have glided down to the parking lot below. He made as if to throw himself  
over, regardless.  
"Wait!" Xanatos slung Goliath's arm over his shoulders and  
blasted off.  
His computer-enhanced visor saw her first, and he could pinpoint  
from the way Goliath's grip tightened to the point where it dug trenches in  
his armor the exact moment that he saw her too.  
He landed between two cars and released the gargoyle.  
Overhead, Talon and Maggie and Brooklyn were fighting the tricky winds  
as they, too, descended as rapidly as possible.  
"No ..." Goliath said, crouching beside Elisa's crumpled form.  
Brooklyn landed. "Oh, Elisa," he said miserably.  
Xanatos reached for her, and Goliath angrily shoved his hands  
away. "Leave her be!"  
"Look." He pulled open her jacket, revealing the source of the  
movement he'd seen.  
The babies howled as the icy air hit them. Maggie cried out, her  
knees buckling as she landed, and crawled to Elisa's side. She clutched the  
twins, weeping. Talon knelt beside her, torn between joy for his children  
and grief for his sister.  
Goliath ran his fingers through Elisa's dark hair, the pain of his  
injuries nothing compared to the suffering now evident on his face.  
"It's almost dawn." Brooklyn's voice was dull, dispirited.  
Xanatos bowed his head. He'd come to not only admire the  
gargoyle but like him as well, and hated seeing him suffer like this. What  
would he do, if that were Fox dying in his grasp?  
"Dawn ..." Goliath said. His hands moved over her face, her  
neck. Paused. "The lifebeat! She lives!"  
Xanatos shook his head sadly. "Goliath, she's gone."  
"No! See there!" A thin cloud of a faint breath stirred at Elisa's  
lips.  
"Alive?" Talon dared to hope.  
"We'd never get her to a hospital," Brooklyn said. "We can't  
even move her. She's dying."  
"No," Goliath said firmly. "I'll not let her. Elisa, my love, hear  
me! Stay with me!" He lifted her, held her in his arms. Forced his  
damaged wing to join the other one in folding around her. He glanced up  
at Xanatos. "Protect us."  
"Of course," he said automatically.  
Goliath pressed his brow to Elisa's. Her head moved, and  
Xanatos saw or thought he saw a faint flutter of a pulse in the hollow of  
her neck.  
Although they could not see the rising sun through the thick  
clouds, Xanatos and the mutates knew the dawn in the stiffening skin of  
the gargoyles. Brooklyn went first, a sculpture of sorrow with a single tear  
running down his face.  
"Stay with me," Goliath murmured as his skin turned to stone.  
As Elisa's skin turned to stone.  
Xanatos yanked off his helmet, unable to believe his visor and  
not sure if he even believed his own eyes. But there, before him, was the  
proof. Elisa, solid stone, in Goliath's arms.  
"Holy mother of God," Talon sounded as if all the breath had  
been driven out of him. "How --?"  
Xanatos heard himself talking, although his brain was still trying  
to come to grips with what was in front of him. "Sometimes objects  
change with them, but sometimes not. I never thought --"  
"Will she make it?" Maggie ventured tremulously. "Heal, the  
way they do?"  
"Sunset will tell us," Xanatos said. "If love and will can do it,  
Goliath has enough of both. Until then, we'll do as he asked. We'll protect  
them."  
* *  
The stolen helicopter hovered above Castle Wyvern until the  
pilot had proved to Owen's satisfaction that he was indeed Mr. Xanatos.  
Fox, her head bandaged and the bruise creeping out from under it  
like an inkstain, hurried to meet him as he got out. When she saw Maggie  
and Talon, each holding a swaddled bundle, she hugged her husband  
fiercely. "I knew you'd do it, David!"  
"I can't take all the credit. Elisa saved the babies."  
"Where is Elisa?" Fox asked. "Her mom's worried sick. I tried to  
get her to come back here with me, but she wanted to stay with Angela  
and Delilah. They both made it until dawn, so it looks like they'll be all  
right."  
Xanatos nodded. "That's what we're hoping for." He slid open  
the cargo bay door and Fox gasped in astonishment.  
"But that's --"  
"Elisa."  
"My God, David, is it possible?"  
"Everything is possible, Mrs. Xanatos," Owen said as he joined  
them, but even he looked surprised.  
"How's your head, darling?"  
"I have just three words for you. Extra strength Tylenol."  
Xanatos turned to Maggie. "You must be exhausted. I'm sure  
Alex wouldn't mind some company in the nursery."  
Fox took a peek at the twins. "They are just priceless!" she  
exclaimed.  
"The price was high," Talon said, glancing at his sister. "Very  
high."  
"Show them the way, would you?" Xanatos asked his wife. "I've  
got some things to discuss with Owen."  
Fox led the mutate family inside. When they were safely out of  
earshot, Owen raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Sevarius?"  
Xanatos sighed. "Dead, I think. I evacuated the General complex  
and planted thermite detonators; that'll take care of the clones and other  
experiments."  
"A shame to have to destroy everything," Owen said. "Sevarius  
may have been a renegade, but he did have his moments of genius."  
"Yes, he did." Xanatos reached into the helicopter and brought  
out a silver metal suitcase. "And he was considerate enough to record  
them all on disk. Once we break the encryption codes, we'll have detailed  
files on all of General's projects. Why let good information and research  
go to waste?"  
"People and equipment can be replaced," Owen observed.  
"Oh, and there's this." Xanatos handed him a small object.  
Owen unwrapped the paper square, his eyes flicking over the  
cartoon and the legend at the top without so much as a ghost of a grin.  
"From the brain of Anton Sevarius," he read. He prodded the small metal  
sphere, its surface covered with microcircuitry, with the tip of his finger.  
"In this case," Xanatos said, "literally."  
* *  
"We've decided to name her Diane," Derrek said. "But we'll call  
her Dee for short, to avoid confusion."  
"Why, Derrek," the new grandmother said, cradling the baby.  
"I'm honored! But don't you think you should name her after Elisa?"  
"That's her middle name." Maggie glanced at the clock, saw that  
it was still hours yet until dusk, and squeezed Derrek's hand. "We owe her  
everything! We have to have a chance to thank her!"  
"We will," he said with a surety he didn't really feel.  
They all fell silent for a moment. Diane had been to the roof,  
seen her daughter locked in stone and in Goliath's embrace, a sight which  
removed her last doubts as to the deep and intense love the two shared.   
Now, here with her mutate son and daughter-in-law, she finally  
felt acceptance. Not resignation to her children's fates, not a determination  
to tolerate their differences, but a true acceptance. They were happy, and  
that was all any parent truly wanted.  
"What about this little fellow?" Diane tickled her grandson's  
chubby chin. "You're not naming him after your father, are you? Oh, I  
wish he could be here! Of all the times to go ice-fishing!"  
Derrek shook his head. "I know all about how Dad feels. If he'd  
wanted anyone named after him, he would've tagged me with Peter Jr. No,  
we thought it was only fair to name him after Maggie's dad, Tom. Thomas  
Reed Maza."  
* *  
The explosion ripped apart the General Industries complex and  
shook the surrounding community so hard that many thought it was an  
earthquake, the fabled California "big one" hitting their coastline by  
mistake.  
The warrens of corridors and labs folded in upon themselves like  
a house of cards. Chain reactions of chemicals fueled white-hot blasts.  
Genetically-engineered viruses were incinerated, new lifeforms boiled  
away in their test tubes.  
"Millions of dollars, years of work, gone just like that," the man  
said.  
His companion nodded.  
"You know what this means?" he asked.  
His companion shrugged.  
"We're out of a job."  
Inge Runolf skimmed her fingertips across the controls and the  
craft rose on its cushion of ionized particles. "I hear Athens is hiring," she  
said.  
Judge Halverson, barely able to see anything through the  
bandages that felt like they were all that was holding his nose onto his  
face, or holding his head together for that matter, thought it over. "That  
sounds promising."  
* *  
The clouds had moved on, leaving a crisp, bitterly cold and clear  
sky over Manhattan. As the day deepened toward twilight, an anxious  
knot of people gathered in the courtyard of Castle Wyvern.  
The last pale gold winter rays of the sun slid off the topmost  
tower.  
Statues trembled. Cracks appeared, spread, grew. Fragments  
flaked off.  
With a snarl and a stretch, Brooklyn cast off his stone skin. His  
face immediately fell into a soul-deep expression of anguish, knowing in  
his heart that by now Elisa would be several hours dead.  
Goliath thrust back his wings, sending stone chips flying. His  
arms tightened in an embrace. His eyes opened.  
To find Elisa's gazing up at him as her own stone skin fell off in  
a shower of dust. "Goliath?"  
He crushed her to him. "Elisa!" Heedless of the watching crowd,  
he kissed her.  
"Elisa!" Brooklyn cried. "You're all right!"  
"What ... happened?" She moved her limbs, felt her collarbone  
and the torn place in her jeans where a bullet had grazed. Only unmarked  
skin lay beneath. Nothing hurt, everything worked the way it should. And,  
shaking gravel from her hair, she knew how it had come to be.  
There would be time later for explanations and speculations. All  
that mattered was that Goliath, in his love, had worked a miracle.  
* *  
The End  



End file.
